Snow Day!
We hope you’re all keeping safe and cosy at home today. The snow has decided to give us an unexpected day off school—how exciting! ❄️
If you can, wrap up warm, head outside, and enjoy the winter fun. Build a snowman, make snowy footprints, throw a few snowballs, and have a wonderful time together. We’d love to hear all about your snowy adventures when we’re back in school!
For anyone who would like something extra to do indoors, we’ve added some optional activities for today. These are completely optional—the most important thing is that you stay safe, have fun, and enjoy the magic of the snow.
Take care and keep warm!
Miss Mochan and Mrs O'Neill
❄️ A Short Snowy Day Prayer ❄️
Dear God,
Thank you for the beautiful snow.
Please keep our family safe and warm today.
Help us enjoy the fun of snowflakes, snowmen, and time together.
Bless our home with love and happiness.
Amen.
Welcome to Reception's Class Page
Class Teacher: Miss Mochan
LSA: Mrs O'Neill
Key Information
We kindly ask that all children bring their reading bags to school every day. This means that we can enjoy regular reading together.
Wednesday - Children come to school in P.E. Kit.
Please ensure that your child brings in a water bottle that is clearly named. This must be filled with water.
Don't forget to check that all uniform is clearly named.
Our Class Saint is Saint Paul.
Saint Paul is special because he loved Jesus very much and wanted everyone to know about God’s love.
He travelled to lots of places to tell people how to be kind, how to work together, and how to love others.
Even when things were hard, Saint Paul kept going and didn’t give up. He showed us that we can always try our best and help others every day.
Our values for this half term are Curious and Active.
At St Paul’s, our Reception children are growing to be curious about everything, and active in the world around them, doing little things each day to make a big difference.
Curious means:
We like to look closely at things.
We ask questions.
We enjoy finding out new things about God’s wonderful world.
Active means:
We join in and have a go.
We try to help others.
We work together to make our world a better place.
Catholic Social Teaching: Rights and Responsibilities
We are learning that God wants everyone to have what they need —
food, clothes, a home, school, and help when they are poorly.
Some people have these things, but some people don’t.
Jesus asks us to be kind, share, and help others
so everyone can feel safe and cared for.
RE
Christmas
They enjoy hearing and retelling the Christmas story, singing simple carols, acting out the Nativity, and talking about how special Jesus’ birth is.
They learn that Christmas is a happy celebration because Jesus is God’s Son.
Baptism
They explore important symbols such as water, a special name (Christian name), and the Baptismal candle, which reminds us that Jesus is our Light. The children enjoy simple role‑play of a Baptism and talk about how we are all part of God’s family.
People Who Help Us
In this topic, children learn about people who help us at home, in school, and in church.
They meet the idea that the priest is a special helper in God’s Family, and they explore the church as a special place.
Children also hear stories of Jesus helping others, and they learn that we can follow Jesus today by being kind, caring and helpful.
Phonics
This half term in Reception, we are continuing our phonics journey using Essential Letters and Sounds (ELS), which is our school’s chosen phonics scheme. ELS provides a clear, systematic approach to teaching early reading and helps ensure all children learn to read confidently and quickly.
The children have already made a fantastic start, and Spring 1 is all about learning new sounds, blending them together, and becoming more confident early readers. Children will be introduced to the next set of Phase 3 sounds. These include new digraphs (two letters making one sound) and some trigraphs later in the term.
Reading
As the Reception year progresses and children become more confident in their phonics, they will begin to read books that are carefully matched to their phonic ability. This ensures they can apply the sounds they have learned and experience real success as early readers.
Children will read with an adult in school every week, giving them regular opportunities to practise their skills and develop fluency. Their reading books will be changed weekly, allowing them to enjoy a new text at home while continuing to revisit familiar books to build confidence.
We encourage families to read together as often as possible—little and often makes a big difference!
Literacy
This half term, alongside enjoying our key text Oi Frog!, children will continue developing their early writing skills by building simple sentences such as “cat on the mat” and “frog on the log.” They will also begin creating descriptive sentences like “the frog is small” or “the dog is big,” helping to expand their vocabulary and confidence with sentence structure.
We will focus on identifying initial and final sounds in words and taking part in a range of phonics games to support blending and quick recall of all phonemes learned so far. Children will also continue practising correct letter formation of lower‑case letters, supported by fine motor activities such as threading beads, tracing lines, and pencil control tasks.
Our work with Oi Frog! will be brought to life through puppets, role‑play, small‑world areas, and story reenactments. These activities help children retell the story, explore animal characters, and deepen their understanding through imaginative play.
Maths
In Spring 1, children will continue to deepen their confidence with numbers to 10. They will begin by learning to count accurately to 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, recognising quantities and understanding how numbers are made. Children will compare groups of objects up to 10, talking about which groups have more, fewer or are the same.
The children will also explore simple addition by combining two groups to find the whole, beginning to understand early number bonds. They will continue to subitise (recognise small quantities without counting) and practise recalling some number facts to 5.
Throughout the half term, children will take part in practical, hands‑on maths sessions using real objects, manipulatives and play‑based activities. They will build confidence by counting, sorting, matching, comparing, and explaining their thinking using full sentences.
Understanding of the World
This half term, children will be exploring the theme of animals and their habitats. They will learn about different types of animals, where they live, and how habitats can be hot, cold, or woodland environments. Through hands‑on activities such as Forest School bug hunting, outdoor exploration, and matching animals to their habitats, children will deepen their curiosity about the natural world. We will also learn about Chinese New Year, including Chinese animals and mythical dragons, helping children understand different cultures and celebrations.
Expressive Arts and Design
In Expressive Arts and Design, children will take part in creative activities linked to our core text Oi Frog! and our half‑term theme of animals. They will create artwork such as frog paintings, paper‑plate frogs, animal masks, and collages of woodland, hot and cold habitats. As part of our Chinese New Year learning, children will explore Chinese animals, dragon artwork and imaginative dance. Throughout the half term, children will use a range of materials, tools and techniques to express their ideas, supporting their creativity and fine motor development.
Music
In Music, children will develop their understanding of steady beat and pitch through clapping games, action songs and simple percussion. They will explore how music can be high, low, fast or slow, and will enjoy keeping a steady beat while joining in with songs linked to our animal themes and class stories.
PE
In PE, the focus will be on body management, helping children develop balance, control, coordination and spatial awareness. Through animal‑inspired movement, simple routines and obstacle activities, children will practise travelling in different ways, controlling their bodies safely, and moving with confidence.
Computing
Children will be learning to:
- Recognise and identify familiar letters and numbers on a keyboard.
- Develop basic mouse skills such as moving and clicking.
- Use a simple online paint tool to create digital art.
- Learn to log in and log out.
